A Fallen Angel
by The Favorite02
Summary: "You don't regret it do you?" I questioned. My throat tightened as I spoke and I swallowed hard, trying to fight down tears and fear. His head snapped up, finally looking me in the eyes. "Of course not. I would do anything to be with you." Marlee X Carter


I couldn't help myself. Throughout the Halloween party I was drawn to him, a magnetic pull forcing us together. The longer I was apart from him the more I ached to be with him. And I could tell he felt the same was by all the secret glances and his mischievous smiles that I thought were sure to give us away.

Kriss and Natalie had me trapped in a circle with them, talking about how muscular Maxon was or how kind he had been or how she had supposedly kissed him when we all knew that the only person he had eyes for was America, and I don't even think that they had kissed yet. My back was turned to Carter the entire time, but I could feel his eyes burning into my back, waiting for me to somehow slip out of this conversation and into his arms for a dance.

It wouldn't be unusual for me to sneak a dance with him, maybe two if I made sure he danced with a few other girls in between. He had been quite the hit with all the other girls, and I couldn't blame them, he was very handsome. And I might have been jealous if he didn't look absolutely miserable the entire time.

At the moment Elise had stolen a dance with him, and while she wasn't as bad as America had been, she wasn't very good either. The only thing saving her was Carter's charm on the floor, sweeping her around and around until she almost didn't have to think to move. He did all of the work for her, which was good because Sylvia was watching her like a hawk, waiting for any mistake that she might make.

"Kriss, have you danced with anyone yet?" I wondered, trying to deviate the conversation from Maxon since I didn't have much input on that topic.

Kriss looked at me like I was insane for changing the subject from Maxon, luckily Natalie pulled her attention away from me. "I have. You see that handsome one with the gorgeous eyes? The one dancing with Tiny. He was the best dancer here I think."

"You obviously haven't danced with Maxon yet then." Kriss commented.

"I don't think you have either." Natalie didn't mean for it to sound offensive, and if anyone else had said it it probably would have. Instead it sounded more like a question, like she was unsure of herself.

"Well, not yet. But he's sure to ask me. And he's the prince, surely he's been able to dance since he was a toddler." Kriss was blushing, but she quickly picked herself back up at the thought of Prince Maxon dancing with her.

"Um...I don't think so. He seems like the kinda person that would be a bit of a klutz to me. But I haven't danced with him yet either." I replied.

"Do you really think he'll dance with all of you tonight? That's why all of the guards are here, so that the girls he doesn't want to dance with will get to at least dance with someone." Celeste had snuck up behind me, joining our circle to ruin our spirits.

"I think that he'll dance with everyone at least once tonight." Natalie commented, her voice sounding light and innocent.

"Funny, I don't think he's danced with you yet. Has he?" I smirked, watching Celeste struggle to grasp something to say that would contradict me. "Do you think he'll get to dancing with you?"

She groaned and began to say something else to Kriss, who in turn blushed and tried to change the subject. Kriss never fought back. I turned around and saw that Carter had finally gotten rid of Tiny, who had tried to stay for a second dance, and was now talking with another guard who I came to know as Aspen. Sometimes when Carter needed to get ahold of me Aspen would write letters to me.

"I'm going to go dance a bit. I'll see you guys later." I told them distractedly. They paid no attention to me as I snuck off and tapped Carter on the shoulder. "I was hoping for a dance. The other girls say that you're the best here." I told him sweetly, unable to keep the biggest of smile off of my face.

"Well, that can't be true. I would be delighted to dance with you." Carter told me, putting his hand at a respectful place on my back, making my skin tingle where he had touched me.

Carter lead me to the floor and then turned me around, holding onto my hand with one of his own and keeping the other firmly on my back. We spun around to the tune of the music, making some of the selected stop and stare. If you had thought Carter made the other girls look good, you should have seen him with me when he was actually trying.

I wished the people wouldn't watch though. Because of their stares I had to keep myself at a distance from Carter when all I wanted was to get as closely to him as possible, to feel his skin against mine and his heart beat beating in time with mine.

"Can we meet after the party?" I asked him, unable to hide the longing in my voice.

"Of course, there's a closet near the bathrooms by the women's room. Meet me there as soon as you can after the party. I will be waiting for you." Carter told me. I locked our newest hiding place in my head and then put it into the back of my mind so I could enjoy the moment I was having right now.

"You look very handsome today Officer Woodwork." I told him with a smirk.

There was a gleam in his eyes as he lifted me off the floor a bit. He kept my face close to his for as long as possible, our foreheads touching for the briefest of moments. "And you look gorgeous every day, Lady Marlee."

Then all of a sudden Carter's demeanor changed. He stiffened a bit and held me at a more respectable distance from him. I felt my heart stop.

Someone tapped my shoulder lightly and I turned around to see Prince Maxon dressed as a pirate, completed with what I thought was a bit of blonde stubble above his lips. "Could I steal Lady Marlee for a dance?"

"Of course your highness." Carter replied, stepping back and bowing to Prince Maxon. I followed his retreating footsteps with my eyes and watched him leave the room, surely to go to our hiding spot and wait for me. I wanted nothing more than to follow him and leave Maxon for America, but I could never risk loosing my Carter.

Maxon took me into his arms much as Carter had, holding me at an even further distance than Carter. We must have looked the odd pair with my angel costume and his pirate costume, but nevertheless the girls looked at me with envy. His eyes were shining with amusement which was something that I didn't see very often unless he had been talking with America.

"So, you and Officer Woodwork? The guard who had so graciously helped you after your fall, I'm assuming there's much more to the story than that." Maxon whispered. His tone was playful, but it might have been the scariest thing I had ever heard in my life. Suddenly I saw everything crumbling into pieces. I fought myself from gasping and giving myself away.

"I was just dancing with him to thank him once more for his help that day." I lied, smiling sweetly to him. I couldn't breath out of fear that my sweet Carter would be hurt.

"Lady Marlee, I hope that you find someone you can't live without. And I hope that when you find them you go after them."

"Prince Maxon, you are treading dangerous waters." My hands were trembling and I hoped he couldn't tell.

"I know that your love is for another man. What's keeping you here in a competition for my love?"

My voice was small and I couldn't make my eyes meet his gaze in my shame. How could I waste his time for my own personal benefits? "I'm afraid I won't see him again. He is to stay in the palace and if I leave then I leave him as well."

"Then you'll stay here for as long as you can. I'll keep you here, for him Marlee." Maxon's voice was cheerful, not at all what I expected it to be like after I had told him I had committed treason.

"You aren't going to tell King Clarkson?" I questioned.

"Of course not!" He sounded offended that I had even questioned him, which made me a bit less nervous. "I hope that you find happiness with Officer Woodwork. That being said, I would advise you not to tell anyone about your relationship, even America."

"I understand." My heart sank. I had come to the realization that I couldn't tell her awhile ago, but she was my best friend ever. It felt like I was betraying her by not telling her about one of the most important things in my life. "I would never let anything risk Carter's life."

"I'm glad that you understand."

"Don't you have someone else to dance with?" I suggested teasingly. "America has been sitting in the corner all night."

Maxon's smile deepened just at the mention of America. "Yes. I am saving the best for last. I want all of my attention to be on her when we dance."

"Then you should hurry. I can tell that she's getting impatient." I told him with a smile.

"And so should you. I'm guessing that you'll be meeting with a certain someone as soon as possible?" He held back a laugh at what I was sure was a very eager face.

"It was wonderful dancing with you your highness." was the only thing I could think of to say in response. I knew I was blushing horribly and my face was getting hot. But I didn't care as long as I got to be with my Carter.

Prince Maxon simply bowed and went on to dance with Kriss. Surely after that dance he would dance with America several times to make up for having her wait. And as much as I would have loved to see it, I found myself sneaking out the door, telling anyone who asked that I had to go to the bathroom and that I would be back soon. I would not be back soon.

Carter was sitting on the floor when I opened the door to the closet, but he quickly jumped up, narrowly missing hitting his head. Then he pulled me closer to him and shut the door, making the room pitch black.

"I missed you." Carter kept to a whisper, making sure that if anyone was on the off chance passing by, they wouldn't hear us.

"You just saw me." I told him, holding back a laugh that would surely get us caught.

He pressed a light kiss to my forehead. "One day," I promised him "you'll see me so much that you'll want to get rid of me."

"I could never." He kissed my nose for a second and then moved down to my face, lingering there for a second before pulling away from me. I pulled him to me once more and gave him a long, tender kiss.

Never in my life had I wanted such a gorgeous dress off of my body as much as I did now. I moved his hands from the small of my back to the top of my zipper, silently asking for what I wanted so much.

Even without light I could tell that he was startled, his hands didn't move once I placed them there. "Are you sure?" He whispered. I could only nod in response, him only knowing because I had laid my head on his chest.

He was breathing heavily as he pulled the zipper down and all of the sudden my angel dress laid in a pile around my feet. Carter placed kiss after kiss on my shoulder before moving back up to my lips again.

Suddenly he stopped, placing a finger to my lips to signal me to be quiet. I strained to hear whatever he heard, but I couldn't over the loud thumping of my heart. I bent down carefully to put my dress back on me, not daring to zip the zipper back up in case of alerting our position.

Footsteps became louder and louder as they came closer to our hide away. My eyes fluttered closed and I hid my face in Carter's chest. He was breathing from fear of our location being found.

"We have to check every room before we leave this floor. We have to find Lady Marlee." A voice said from outside.

My mind rushed to who could have found us out. Had Maxon lied to me and gone to his father, even after everything he had said to me?

They started opening doors, coming closer and closer to where we were. I knew that they would come to our door eventually and there was nothing that we could do to get out of this situation. Even if we opened the door and made a run for it they would see us and we'd be in the same situation. A sense of hopelessness rested in my stomach making me feel slightly sick.

"I love you." Carter told me, not bothering as much to keep his voice down since we both knew capture was inevitable at this point.

I was startled by his words, we had never told each other we had loved each other, partially due to the fact that most of the time we had to keep our voices down and also that we didn't need to. We each knew that we truly loved each other.

I never got to say the words back because the door was opened slowly, once more letting light into the room. They found us clinging tightly to each other and our faces red from our previous endeavors.

Natalie was within the group that had found us, two guards and a news reporter trailing behind. Her eyes were wide and her hands flew to her mouth. I was almost sure that I heard one of the guards whisper Carter's name in shock, but it didn't register in my mind. What I did register was the reporter holding a camera up and videoing the entire spectacle.

The other guard had to force Carter and I away from each other. He hit him, throwing Carter to the floor. I fell to my knees beside him, hoping to help somehow, but instead the kinder guard who had known Carter pulled me up by the wings of my dress and held me away from the action.

Carter was lying limply on the floor, merely offering a grunt or two as his guard kicked him and hit him with a baton until he didn't struggle anymore. At first I had screamed, almost in as much pain as Carter was, but then I resigned to closing my eyes and turning away from the scene. But instead I was plagued by the sounds.

He was pulled to his feet by the guard and then I was pushed by my own guard to follow after them. Tears were streaming down my face as we walked, the further we went the more cameras flashed pictures. This would surely be all over Illea by tomorrow.

"I'm so sorry." Natalie whispered in horror. "I thought you were hurt."

I wanted to forgive her, but I was pushed too fast. I managed to turn my head around and saw her crying profusely, shaking her head as if she thought the entire thing was her fault. If I ever saw her again, which I thought was pretty unlikely, then I would have to make sure she understood that I didn't blame her for any of this.

We were taken to the a floor of the palace that I had never seen before that consisted of the cells for the prisoners left in the palace. It was cold and wet in there, kind of like a cave and every step we took echoed off of the walls.

I had gotten no sleep throughout the night, partially because of the fear-fear for Carter, and fear that I was going to die- and partially because the cold, damp ground that I was laying on. Thoughts plagued me throughout the night, sometimes I wondered whether or not it was worth it, being with Carter if all that came from it was death. But I tried to erase those thoughts from my head, even a short time with Carter was enough for me.

The guards came for me assumably in the morning, I couldn't tell because there was no window or clock in the cells. They had taken us far under the ground and began to take me back up thousands of flights of stairs.

Carter wasn't with me. He hadn't been in his cell when I passed. He wasn't in front of me from what I could tell. I couldn't breath. My heart was racing. My palms were sweating.

Light blinded me as we got to the last flight where windows took up most of the walls, seemingly another way to punish the prisoners. Why not blind them before their death? It's not like they'll need sight for much longer.

And then there was Carter, standing surrounded by almost twice the amount of guards I had, all of them grumbling about his apparent escape attempt. "You're alive!" I would have fallen to my knees when I saw him if it wasn't for the firm grasp my guards had on my upper arms.

"Not for long," one of them grumbled, causing the other guards to laugh wildly. My mind flitted to the memory of Maxon promising me neither one of us would be dying today, that we were only going to be canned and then moved down to caste 8 to be moved to another state. But perhaps this would be worse. Perhaps we were only being given the hope that we could make it, only to be killed on the streets.

"Come on now," the nicer guard from the night before said. "They aren't being punished to death."

"They might as well be. Serves them right too." Another replied, sticking a solid kick to the back of Carter's knees, making his legs buckle. He was roughly picked up and made to lean against the wall again, looking like a raggedy Anne doll.

"That's enough. Let them speak to each other before they go up there, I'll stay and watch them. Carter was all of our friends before this, I don't see why that should change now." Some of the guards began to leave, but most stayed behind until the nice guard ushered them all out.

I rushed over to Carter, who was barely standing up on his own at the moment. Yet he still made his attempts to walk towards me. I pushed him back to lean against the wall and cupped his cheek with my hand, covering a bad cut. I have him a quick kiss and felt him smirk beneath my lips.

"What?" I asked, only slightly irritated.

"This is the first time we've kissed with someone else watching." I turned my head and saw the guard quickly look away, blushing hard. I probably wasn't any better.

"It'll happen plenty more times after this." I promised, leaning in for another kiss.

"Let's just get through today for now, my Darling."

"That's enough time! The king said to bring them to the stage." One of the guards called from out the door. They came in and grabbed us again, taking us outside to the stage where the royal family sat with two devices in front of them, both meant to hold us down and keep Carter and I from struggling.

I scanned the audience, my mother was there. My father way there. Both were crying but my mother took it much harder. She couldn't even look at me. And then there was America, hair face was set, she was going to do something stupid after this. And then I almost fell to my knees, sitting in the crowd, crying was "May."

"No talking girl." One of the guards pulled my hair, making my head fall back. I watched hair as they pushed me along, never had I thought that the king would make poor May sit through my canning. But I suppose he never was too caring about anyone.

They strapped into our chairs with more force than they had used before. Carter and I fell to our knees, not struggling so that the process wasn't delayed any. They took his shirt off and kept him where his back was exposed. They turned me to face him and stuck my hand in a contraption to make sure that I wouldn't move or flinch.

The king repeated to everyone what I already knew. Carter and I had committed treason. We would be canned X number of times for punishment. I didn't listen. I stared at Carter instead who kept his head down.

"You don't regret it, do you?" I questioned. My throat tightened as I spoke and I swallowed hard, trying to fight down my tears and fear. It didn't work, once I started crying I couldn't stop and I couldn't wipe them away so they fell onto my hands and my clothes and the stage.

His head snapped up, looking me in the eyes. "Of course not. I would do anything to be with you. But I don't want you to have to get punished as well. It's all my fault really."

I couldn't make myself talk no matter how hard I tried. So I shook my head to let him know I didn't believe that. "Hey, It's ok. We're going to be ok."

Two people came towards us, whip in hand. They seemed all too eager to cane us, so I assumed they wouldn't be taking it easy on us. They warmed up their whips and when they were ready, the king counted out how many lashings we had gotten.

"One."

I let out a whimper, biting my tongue to keep from screaming in pain. My eyes opened wider than before. I didn't know a person could feel this much pain.

"Two."

The pain only got worse the next time, striking in nearly the same place as before. The scream that I had fought so hard to fight down found it's way out. This time I closed my eyes, maybe it would better.

"Three."

It wasn't better, it was far worse. Not knowing when it was coming made the pain far worse than before.

"Four."

I felt queasy and the world spun around me. So I kept my eyes trained on Carter for a second. He was obviously in pain, He was gritting his teeth so hard that I feared they might break. His face was red from either straining or holding his breath. But his back was the worst part. Already skin hung off of him and blood smeared all across it in a tattered mess.

"We're going to be ok. We're going to be fine." Carter assured me.

"Five."

I wished Carter would stop talking and save up his strength.

"Six."

Only nine more to go.

"Seven."

For a blissful second my vision turned black. I thought that maybe I would pass out. Then at least I wouldn't have to feel the pain anymore.

"Eight."

Carter passed out, his head hanging limp in the huge contraption. Well, I hoped that he had only passed out. It was much more painful to imagine him dead than it was to get caned.

"Nine."

I missed his words of comfort. I didn't have enough strength to repeat them to myself.

"Ten."

It felt like it would never stop. I had to distract myself. I had to get away. I had to help Carter. I had to do something.

"Eleven."

My vision when dark again and stayed that way until the next strike.

"Twelve."

I looked up to find the Selected girls, all of whom were seated right in front of me. Surely it was to remind them not to do what I had. It was working. Elise looked sick, hunched over and holding a hand over her mouth. Kriss was crying and hugging Natalie close to her who was muttering something over and over again in a hazy, dreamlike state. I was reminded of the guilt she must have felt and all I wanted to do was hug her.

"Thirteen."

Celeste looked angry. Her face was red and she was clenching her hands into fists. Natalie and Celeste's guards both stood in front of her to keep her from running and probably killing someone. It shocked me so much that it distracted me from the next strike.

"Fourteen."

Where had America gone? I searched for her but I only saw her family. May was huddled up between her father -who was acting very strong for May, but I could see the pain in his face- and her mother who was not taking it so well. May looked crushed.

"Fifteen."

It was over. I relaxed into myself and looked up to see my parents. And I looked away again. My mother was hunched over crying and my dad was unable to look me in the eyes. He seemed pained more than anything else.

The crowed, children and adults alike, started up in a sickening cheer. It made me want to throw up.

A guard picked Carter up and dragged him by his arms across the stage and away from me. My gaze followed him but I couldn't move to him. My breathing started quickening and I struggled against my restraints.

Then another guard grabbed me and yanked me away by my hands. As soon as I touched them I let out a loud shriek of pain and begged him to let me go. He didn't listen to me and my vision began to give away for the last time, letting me finally find some relief.


End file.
